Arkansas Blog

Austin makes homeless roving "hotspots"

An idea for Mayor Mark Stodola, Downtown Partnership Director Sharon Priest and others. It's from New York Times coverage of the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas:

Getting a decent data connection at SXSW can be a challenge, given that it attracts what may be the most data-hungry crowd in the world. With a project called Homeless Hotspots, a marketing company is helping out with this, while helping the homeless and promoting itself. Homeless people have been enlisted to roam the streets wearing T-shirts that say “I am a 4G hotspot.” Passersby can pay what they wish to get online via the 4G-to-Wi-Fi device that the person is carrying. It is a neat idea on a practical level, but also a little dystopian. When the infrastructure fails us… we turn human beings into infrastructure? — David Gallagher